About the Book

Exploring the software design, social practices, and collaboration theory
needed to support group cognition -- collective knowledge constructed by
small groups online ....

from the back cover:

Global and local networks of linked computers make
collaborative working, learning, and acting possible through innovative
uses of computer technology. In Group Cognition Gerry Stahl
explores the technological and social reconfigurations that are needed
to achieve computer supported collaborative knowledge building--group
cognition that transcends the limits of individual cognition. Computers
can provide active media for social group cognition where ideas grow through
the interactions within groups of people; software functionality can manage
group discourse that results in shared understandings, new meanings, and
collaborative learning. Stahl offers software design prototypes, analyzes
empirical instances of collaboration, and elaborates a theory of collaboration
that takes the group, rather than the individual, as the unit of analysis.

Stahl's design studies concentrate on mechanisms to
support group formation, multiple interpretive perspectives, and the negotiation
of group knowledge in applications as varied as collaborative curriculum
development by teachers, writing summaries by students, and designing
space voyages by NASA engineers. Stahl's empirical analysis shows how,
in small-group collaborations, the group constructs intersubjective knowledge
that emerges from and appears in the discourse itself. This discovery
of group meaning becomes the springboard for Stahl's outline of a social
theory of collaborative knowing. Stahl also discusses such related issues
as the distinction between meaning making at the group level and interpretation
at the individual level, appropriate research methodology, philosophical
directions for group cognition theory, and suggestions for further empirical
work.

Reviews of the Book

Table of Contents

Note: The following materials were last revised March 16, 2005, from the final
manuscript. This is a pre-publication version of the book. This version
has not been edited, laid out or paginated by MIT Press. Please do not
cite page numbers from this version or quote from it. This version is
only for informal use and may not be duplicated.

Abstract: Cognition is no longer confined to the solitary musings of an armchair philosopher, but takes place, for instance, in problem-solving efforts of teams of people distributed around the world and involving various artifacts. The study of such cognition can unfold at multiple units of analysis. Here, three cases of problem solving by virtual math teams demonstrate the mix of individual, group and social levels of cognition. They show how a resource like a mathematical topic can bridge the different levels. Focusing on the under-researched phenomena of group cognition, the presentation highlights three pre-conditions for the constitution of group cognition: longer sequences of responses, persistent co-attention and shared understanding. Together, these structure a virtual analog of physical embodiment: being-there-together, where what is “there” is taken by the participants as co-experienced.